From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Kztd1-0007kw-DS for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:49:59 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B3698E02C9; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:49:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6D124E02C9 for ; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:49:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [192.168.1.213] (unknown [74.92.132.138]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A07F650C5 for ; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:49:55 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds From: Ferris McCormick To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org In-Reply-To: <49195BFA.7060404@gentoo.org> References: <20081110181334.GD7038@aerie.halcy0n.com> <4918D0BC.50202@gentoo.org> <4918DE04.8010207@gentoo.org> <49195BFA.7060404@gentoo.org> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=-xFonP+jJ3UHjA5bfrv5k" Organization: gentoo developer Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:49:53 +0000 Message-Id: <1226411393.6035.332.camel@liasis.inforead.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.22.3.1 X-Archives-Salt: 1b7e0e3f-11eb-436f-854b-7b60c3e83ecc X-Archives-Hash: 20707bfa23b702763af7ff3f577d47b2 --=-xFonP+jJ3UHjA5bfrv5k Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tue, 2008-11-11 at 11:18 +0100, Jose Luis Rivero wrote: > Richard Freeman wrote: > > Jose Luis Rivero wrote: > >> I would prefer to analyze the causes of the slacker arch (manpower,=20 > >> hardware, etc) and if we are not able to solve the problem by any way=20 > >> (asking for new devs, buying hardware, etc) go for mark it as=20 > >> experimental and drop all stable keywords. > >=20 > > How is that better? Instead of dropping one stable package you'd end u= p=20 > > dropping all of them. A user could accept ~arch and get the same=20 > > behavior without any need to mark every other package in the tree=20 > > unstable. =20 >=20 > Accept ~arch for the random package which has lost the stable keyword a=20 > random day? And next week .. which is going to be the next? The key is=20 > the concept 'stable' and what you hope of it. >=20 > A long/middle-term solution for arches with very few resources instead=20 > of generating problems to users seems a much better approach to me. >=20 > > An arch could put a note to that effect in their installation=20 > > handbook. The user could then choose between a very narrow core of=20 > > stable packages or a wider universe of experimental ones. >=20 > Mixing software branches is very easy in the Gentoo world but it has=20 > some problems. Are you going to install in your stable (production,=20 > critial, important,...) system a combination of packages not tested=20 > before? Because the arch teams or the maintainers are not going to test=20 > every posible combination of core stable + universe of experimental=20 > packages. This is why branches exists. >=20 > > I guess the question is whether package maintainers should be forced to= =20 > > maintain packages that are outdated by a significant period of time.=20 > > Suppose something breaks a package that is 3 versions behind stable on=20 > > all archs but one (where it is the current stable). Should the package= =20 > > maintainer be required to fix it, rather than just delete it? =20 >=20 > Maintainer has done all he can do, this means: that is broken, this=20 > version fix the problem, go for it. Maintainer's job finishes here, now=20 > it's the problem of your favorite arch team. >=20 > > I suspect=20 > > that the maintainer would be more likely to just leave it broken, which= =20 > > doesn't exactly leave things better-off for the end users. >=20 > It's a different approach (maybe with the same bad results) but=20 > different anyway. Leave the bug there, point the user to the bug and=20 > maybe you can gain a new dev or an arch tester. >=20 > While the proposal made here is to throw random keyword problems to=20 > users by policy (which in the case of amd64 some months ago would have=20 > created a complete disaster). >=20 > > I'm sure the maintainers of qt/baselayout/coreutils/etc will exercise=20 > > discretion on removing stable versions of these packages. However, for= =20 > > some obscure utility that next-to-nobody uses, does it really hurt to=20 > > move from stable back to unstable if the arch maintainers can't keep up= ? >=20 > Special cases and special plans are allowed, what we are discussing here=20 > is a general and accepted policy. >=20 > > I guess it comes down to the driving issues. How big a problem are=20 > > stale packages (with the recent movement of a few platforms to=20 > > experimental, is this an already-solved problem?)? How big of a proble= m=20 > > do arch teams see keeping up with 30-days as (or maybe 60/90)? What ar= e=20 > > the practical (rather than theoretical) ramifications? >=20 > An interesting discussion. Ask our council to listen all parts:=20 > maintainers, current arch teams, the experience of mips, etc. and try to=20 > make a good choice. >=20 > Thanks Richard. >=20 > -- > Jose Luis Rivero > Gentoo/Alpha Gentoo/Do >=20 Very interesting discussion. Let me take a more or less random post and toss in a slight variation. As you might know, I am an arch maintainer (sparc) and I don't think we are a "slacker architecture." However, I have placed an indefinite hold on a stabalization request from the bug-that-must-not-be-named, because in my opinion this package given the current state of everything should not go stable on sparc (more QA issues than functional ones). How, I wonder, would the variations here handle such a situation? I don't think this situation is unique because arch developers are sometimes going to have a different concept of "stable" than the package developers do. If this does not make sense, is off topic, or irrelevant feel free to ignore it. Regards, Ferris --=20 Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Userrel, Trustees) --=-xFonP+jJ3UHjA5bfrv5k Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEABECAAYFAkkZjYEACgkQQa6M3+I///cSTgCg2OI7FP5K1b8av3X6VR5QJBZs ttcAnAqg7T5yWGw76i8RuEhW2YQoheSK =G+Lq -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-xFonP+jJ3UHjA5bfrv5k--